AI Transcription APIs pricing across 7 tracked products: entry-tier median $0, top-tier median $0.03. Cheapest: AssemblyAI. Most premium: AWS Transcribe. Updated April 2026.
Transcription APIs are metered per audio minute, typically $0.002-$0.01/minute. Volume commits cut per-minute cost 30-60%; dedicated capacity available at $1k+/month.
Entry-tier median is $0, top-tier median $0.03. Negotiated enterprise deals typically land 15-40% below list.
| Product | Entry | Median | Top | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AssemblyAI | $0 | $0.10 | $0.21 | month |
| AWS Transcribe | $0 | $2.25 | $6.75 | month |
| Deepgram | $0 | $2,000 | $4,000 | month |
| Google Cloud Speech-to-Text | $0 | $0 | $0 | month |
| Rev AI | $0.00 | $0.01 | $0.03 | month |
| Speechmatics | $0 | $0.00 | $0.01 | month |
| Whisper (OpenAI) | $0.00 | $0.01 | $0.01 | month |
Low is the entry-tier price (often a free or starter plan). Median is the middle price across published tiers. High is the top published tier — enterprise contracts with negotiated discounts usually land 15-40% below the published high.
Across 7 tracked products, the entry-tier median is $0 and the top-tier median is $0.03. Individual products vary significantly — see the per-product table above.
AssemblyAI has the lowest entry-tier price in our tracked set.
AWS Transcribe has the highest top-tier list price among tracked products.
Prices are sourced from vendor pricing pages and automatically re-checked. Any tier marked 'custom' has no public list price; negotiated deals aren't shown here.